Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#351

Post by adastra22 » Mon, May 23, 2022, 10:25 PM UTC

sjostrom7 wrote: post #343

MockObject wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps "ignoring" means refusing to entertain it even for the sake of argument. Bodily autonomy is probably a weak argument, because it assumes that the fetus isn't a living human being deserving of the same protections against slaughter that you and I enjoy. If it is, bodily autonomy doesn't justify murder. If it's not, then protecting it from abortion is absurd. In neither case though, is bodily autonomy a compell…

Disagree. You can turn up the personhood all the way and still, in a scenario where a child was dying and needed a kidney and their parent was the only available match, the parent could not be legally forced to donate it. Why? They own their body and can't be forced to put themselves through bodily harm to help someone else. You seem to be saying that "personhood" should be the deciding factor of abortion rights, but…

Great job. Now take it the other extreme: is it okay to kill a baby that had already been born, but was still attached by the umbilical cord? It’s still, technically, part of the mother’s body at that point.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#352

Post by lamontcg » Mon, May 23, 2022, 10:42 PM UTC

The title article and all of the responses here don't capture the argument that if abortion is illegal that means that it still happens, but young women will die (and the poor young women who can't be quietly flown to another jurisdiction where it is legal).

And I think the bigger problem is that we allow people to have nonsense opinions in polite society. The idea that human life begins at conception and that undifferentiated cells are human life worth more than the life of the mother is just garbage. That isn't really defensible. And that isn't my problem and I'm not going to be particularly apologetic about it and I don't need to see eye to eye with anyone else. They constructed this ridiculous argument that I can never in a million years agree with and so I won't. I literally can't compromise with that position, and it is a position that I would argue is crafted deliberately to avoid compromise. Ain't my problem. And if you're going to argue that it should be my problem and that I don't get how we need civility and tolerance I think you're the bigger problem.

Keep punching the wrong direction though.

And where's the outrage over the anti-abortion activists painting their opposition as supporting abortion uncritically into the third trimester? There's nobody reasonable out there who believes that. Yet you'll find people who find abortion troubling and want it done quickly and can't agree with it being in the third trimester except to save the life of the mother who consider themselves to be against abortion. They're actually pro-abortion/pro-choice because that's the way everyone thinks. Make it quick and easy and get it done in the first trimester ASAP (and use contraception so ideally it never gets there and stop using the rhythm method or pulling out because that's how you wind up needing abortions, and use the morning after pill in the case of contraceptive failure or rape). Most pro-abortion/choice people already ARE at the compromise point between the two extreme endpoints of the possible debate.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#353

Post by tensor » Mon, May 23, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

_gabe_ wrote: post #342

dotnet00 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "What makes killing a human murder" is the wrong path to go down when it comes to arguments for/against abortion. It's so politically charged and yet impossible to clearly discuss in any significant detail, thus the situation we find ourselves in. I think it's better to just accept that abortion is prematurely terminating a life and thus the primary consideration should be the cost the parents and/or society…

> I think "What makes killing a human murder" is the wrong path to go down when it comes to arguments for/against abortion. I guess since this is your opinion I can't say it's wrong, but I can strongly suggest that this opinion is wrong. Is abortion the killing of a child? If it is not then why does a state like California have laws written about double homicide that say: > defines murder as the unlawful killing of a…

These were already discussed, already ruled on, and already decided. Just because you don't like where society landed doesn't mean "we haven't explored it" and it doesn't mean that your wishes are some sort of "hard truth."

These sorts of inconsistencies in the law can easily be sorted out. If the fetus is not a human with rights yet then if another person terminates it (against the mothers wishes) then you've clearly harmed the mother. This is literally the same argument for abortion, under some development threshold of X months, its called healthcare.

As I said, this same discussion has happened for the last 20 years. I'm never going to be swayed to your side on this. Maybe this is all novel for you. But nothing you said is new to me and I just don't care to debate it or discuss it. I completely understand you point of view, but I disagree and will continue to disagree and fight for women's health and rights.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#354

Post by imbnwa » Mon, May 23, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

jdlyga wrote: post #69

It's easy to rationalize bad things if you spend too much effort trying to understand them. After all, even Hitler thought he was doing good for the world. Yes we all need to understand each other, to a point. Beyond that point, you need to fight for what's right.

Would rephrase that as "Hitler thought he was doing good for the 'Aryan race'"

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#355

Post by UnpossibleJim » Mon, May 23, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

swat535 wrote: post #331

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument falls down when talking about sending American troops to any situation, however. Not sending troops in would be a passive lack of support. Sending in troops would be the active killing, on a national level.

The counter argument to that is: If pro lifers are assuming that a fetus is indeed a living human being, then it follows that the child is completely innocent and its survival is completely dependent on the mother. A soldier signing up for the army knows very well what he is up against..

https://kjzz.org/content/1777360/arizona-gov-doug-ducey-says...

And yet here is Governor Ducy arguing for an arguably mentally incompetent man to be put to death for the murder of an innocent child. While, yes, the crime is egregious, and he should never be set free from his cell... Do you think that it is, indeed "pro-life" to argue, as quite a few do, to argue for the death penalty as a form of punishment (I won't say many - this truly does split the movement. Catholics especially - Ducy is a poor representative, but Republican politicians are overwhelmingly pro death penalty, anti abortion). A strong case can be made that the people who are executed suffer from severe mental illness and are not capable of telling right from wrong in any true form. Sociopaths who lack the education or means to make it to Wall Street, as it were.

Just so you know, I'm not trying to be argumentative to be argumentative. You guys being very polite and I enjoy these conversations =) If you get sick of it, just stop responding, no hard feelings =)

EDIT: grammar is hard

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#356

Post by dotnet00 » Mon, May 23, 2022, 11:08 PM UTC

_gabe_ wrote: post #342

dotnet00 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "What makes killing a human murder" is the wrong path to go down when it comes to arguments for/against abortion. It's so politically charged and yet impossible to clearly discuss in any significant detail, thus the situation we find ourselves in. I think it's better to just accept that abortion is prematurely terminating a life and thus the primary consideration should be the cost the parents and/or society…

> I think "What makes killing a human murder" is the wrong path to go down when it comes to arguments for/against abortion. I guess since this is your opinion I can't say it's wrong, but I can strongly suggest that this opinion is wrong. Is abortion the killing of a child? If it is not then why does a state like California have laws written about double homicide that say: > defines murder as the unlawful killing of a…

By saying that it's the wrong path, I'm not trying to deny that it's a human (or at least a potential human) being killed, what I'm saying is that asking that question isn't too relevant to the issue.

I think that California treats killing a pregnant woman as double homicide to make it a harsher punishment rather than the other way around.

>Put another way, would you tell a mother grieving for her miscarriage that she didn't actually lose a child? She just lost a fetus after all, so it's not like there's much to grieve about.

I think it's slightly ironic you would suggest this, because my position is based on the belief that abortions are often just as emotionally difficult for parents as miscarriages. In which case it's equally insensitive to tell a woman who just had to abort a child from rape (or alternatively, due to a life threatening condition) that she is a murderer.

To further clarify my position, we can look at the two answers to the question "Is it murder to kill a fetus?":

1. It is murder. In this case, the surface level position would be that abortion should be illegal. But then we get to details and usually people are fine with allowing it in certain cases. Thus making murder acceptable in specific circumstances, making abortion about which circumstances are acceptable.

2. It isn't murder. In this case, the surface level position would be that abortion should be legal. But then we run into the examples you presented. Thus once again making abortion about which circumstances are unacceptable.

So in the end, as far as abortion is concerned, it does not matter if it is or is not murder, because the specific issue to be figured out is which circumstances are acceptable/unacceptable in a practical way (rather than the unrealistic ideological proposals that usually fly around due to the simple answers to "Is it murder to kill a fetus?" both being very extreme).

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#357

Post by ertian » Mon, May 23, 2022, 11:13 PM UTC

ActorNightly wrote: post #314

timoth3y wrote: post #68

The answer to the question in the title is contained in the title. For a number of reasons, we seem to have reached the point where hyperbolic, emotional statements get attention and calm, rational discussion is ignored. A world where everyone is trying to position themselves as the persecuted, besieged voice of reason defending simple truth against irrational attractors, does not leave much room for common ground. I…

The underlying issue is that online political or social discourse isn't so much as discourse as much as the virtual form of people trying to fit in socially - people use political/social issues to signal what kind of person they are (or more accurately, what kind of person they want everyone else to think they are), in order to feel like they are part of a community. Once you understand the online social media throug…

On top of that, and related: almost no conversations are private or intimate. Conversations have a vast potential audience. So people are less concerned with communicating their point or changing the mind of the person to whom they're speaking; instead, the goal is often to impress points on the implicit audience. That leads to a sort of competition for 'audience' mindshare, where conceding a point or acknowledging complexity feels like giving ground to the other side.

In other words, it's not just about tribalism and a sense of belonging, it's also about lobbying for the positions and attitudes you hold and pushing out those you disagree with. You don't actually care much about the specific person you're talking to: you're performing for an audience.

In a sense, we've all become politicians.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#358

Post by sjostrom7 » Mon, May 23, 2022, 11:14 PM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #351

sjostrom7 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. You can turn up the personhood all the way and still, in a scenario where a child was dying and needed a kidney and their parent was the only available match, the parent could not be legally forced to donate it. Why? They own their body and can't be forced to put themselves through bodily harm to help someone else. You seem to be saying that "personhood" should be the deciding factor of abortion rights, but…

Great job. Now take it the other extreme: is it okay to kill a baby that had already been born, but was still attached by the umbilical cord? It’s still, technically, part of the mother’s body at that point.

That's kind of silly. The easiest way to free the one frees the other.

We all just want to go about our lives within being forced by law to sacrifice our rights to our bodies.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#359

Post by timoth3y » Mon, May 23, 2022, 11:19 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #136

timoth3y wrote: post #68

The answer to the question in the title is contained in the title. For a number of reasons, we seem to have reached the point where hyperbolic, emotional statements get attention and calm, rational discussion is ignored. A world where everyone is trying to position themselves as the persecuted, besieged voice of reason defending simple truth against irrational attractors, does not leave much room for common ground. I…

>It's interesting to note that the author does seem to have had anyone accuse him of being "traitorous" for trying to understand. He just asserts this strawman to paint those who might disagree as unreasonable and then bemoans his asserted lack of common ground. Are you saying the author lacks credibility because they themselves do not show evidence of it happening to them? I'm confused, because the first and second…

My apologies. That sentence should have read "does not seem to have had anyone accuse him of being..."

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#360

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Mon, May 23, 2022, 11:57 PM UTC

areyousure wrote: post #327

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. > The government can't pass laws against "Turtles Suck!" because that power is not granted them. I find this way of explaining things somewhat disingenuous. Very few powers are delegated to the federal government, but all of those that are are (because o…

> (1) you're suggesting that before the 14th amendment, a state could pass a "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." ? That seems preposterous. The words immediately preceding your quote are "CONGRESS shall m…

I am honestly happy to be proven wrong - thanks for citations and links to back it up.

That said, my point (3) still stands.

Also, according to:

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1533/barnes-v-f...

MA stopped funding churches in 1833, significantly before the passage of the 14th amendment.